Young Goodman Brown

617 Words3 Pages
Although various readers may have different outlooks on the allegories presented in “Young Goodman Brown” by Hawthorne, it is clear that there is one condescending message that this story is conveying. Young Goodman Brown is an allegory of a young man grappling with his spirituality and a constant clash between his beliefs of whether to stay good of give into the temptation of sin. Hawthorne used different colors, characters, and even settings to display this message. The setting of this story takes place in Salem. Salem is important in understanding this story because at that time, the town of Salem was ingested in the controversy of the Salem witch trials. Hawthorne purposely places this story in a forest near Salem to toy with the idea of an evil setting. When looking at Goodman brown’s wife Faith, we see that this is a representation of not only of his wife but also his religious faith. Hawthorne leaves little hits saying “ And Faith, as the wife was aptly named” (87) and “My love and my Faith.” (87) to show that it is no coincidence that she is named like this. The unity of YGB and faith versus the separation is one of the biggest struggles in this story. In the beginning of the story we see that faith is trying to convince YGB to “Put off your journey until sunrise and sleep in your own bed tonight…”(87) This is YGB’s faith telling him not to go on this evil journey and pleading with him to stay with his own faith. Eventually we see that YGB calculatedly made the decision to leave his faith and venture into the land of evil. YGB is not fully convinced of his decision as he says “Poor little Faith!.. What a wretch am I to leave her on such an errand!” (88) and again Hawthorne further exhibits this struggle by writing that he looked back as he walked away and made eye contact with faith. YGB justifies his action to separate from this faith by saying “after
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